Nvidia Was Blue Chip Star Of 2024, But Trailblazers In the Small Cap Universe Charted Exhilarating Gains — Here Are The Chart Toppers

Small-cap stocks emerged as the standout performers of 2024, significantly outpacing their blue-chip counterparts amid a broader market rally.

What Happened: The disparity was particularly striking in the year’s top performers, with small-cap leader KULR Technology Group KULR delivering an extraordinary 2,494% return, while blue-chip frontrunner NVIDIA Corporation NVDA gained a still-impressive 184%.

Traditional blue-chip stocks, typically components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, demonstrated their characteristic stability while still posting notable gains.

Historically, small-cap stocks, typically valued between $250 million and $3 billion, have shown potential to outperform the S&P 500 despite higher volatility. The Russell 2000, which tracks this segment, serves as a key benchmark for small-cap performance.

Market Performance Comparison 2024, according to data from Benzinga Pro:

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Why It Matters: The exceptional performance of small-caps aligns with ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood‘s mid-2024 prediction of smaller companies outperforming the “Magnificent Seven” tech giants. Wood attributed this shift to the Federal Reserve’s restrictive monetary policy, suggesting it could create opportunities beyond mega-cap stocks.

This shift comes as veteran Wall Street investor Ed Yardeni projects the S&P 500 to reach 7,000 by the end of 2025, citing a “Roaring 2020s” scenario driven by productivity gains and cooling inflation. Yardeni forecasts S&P 500 operating earnings per share to hit $285 in 2025, an 18.8% year-over-year increase.